Curse

Khomet Si Netjer · Feb 28, 2011, 08:20 PM // 20:20

first the positive... I love the dervish update. Instead of just making the dervish skills more powerful they have become... different. What I mean to say is that dervishes play differently than warriors or assassins and that is a good thing. However, the dervish update also points out some glaring inequalities in skill balance especially when compared with that other Nightfall profession, paragons. Some of the paragon skills are embarrassingly bad when compared with the dervish equivalent. Here are a few examples...

Heart of Fury vs. Aggressive Refrain
Heart of Fury; 4a
Stance. For 2...10...12 seconds, you attack 25% faster.
Aggressive Refrain; 25e, 2s activation
Echo. For 5...21...25 seconds, you attack 25% faster but have -20 armor. This echo is reapplied every time a chant or shout ends on you.

Aggressive Refrain has a massive cost and you get -20 armor on top of it. Please, no more paragon hate... this is just sad.

Onslaught vs. Avatar of Balthazar vs. Soldier's Fury
Onslaught; 10e 10r
Elite Flash Enchantment Spell. For 3...13...15 seconds, you attack, move and gain adrenaline 25% faster.
Avatar of Balthazar; 5e 2s 10r
Elite Form. For 10...74...90 seconds, you gain +20 armor against physical damage, you gain adrenaline 33% faster, your attacks deal holy damage, and whenever you lose a Dervish enchantment, nearby foes are set on fire for 5 seconds. This skill is disabled for 45 seconds.
Soldier's Fury; 5e 1s 5r
Elite Echo. For 10...30...35 seconds, if you are under the effects of a chant or a shout, you attack 33% faster and gain 33% more adrenaline, but you have -20 armor.

Unlike the dervish elites, Soldier's Fury is conditional and you get -20 armor on top of it. It's also worth noting that a dervish with 10+ Mysticism now has higher base armor than the paragon.

Balthazar's Rage vs. Burning Refrain
Balthazar's Rage; 10e 10r
Flash Enchantment Spell. All nearby foes are set on fire for 1...3...3 second[s]. For 20 seconds afterward, this enchantment does nothing. When this enchantment ends, you gain 1...2...2 strike[s] of adrenaline if any foes are within earshot.
Burning Refrain; 10e 1s 10r
Echo. For 20 seconds, if target non-Spirit ally hits a foe with more Health than that ally, that foe is set on Fire for 1...3...3 seconds. This Echo is reapplied every time a Chant or Shout ends on that ally.

Balth's Rage inflicts burning on all nearby foes and gives you adrenaline as a bonus.
Burning Refrain might inflict burning on one foe, and if you damage it below your own health you no longer cause burning. And no adrenaline bonus either... /sigh

Eremite's Zeal vs. Leader's Zeal
Eremite's Zeal; 5e 1/4s 15r
Enchantment Spell. You gain 1...3...3 Energy for each foe within earshot, maximum 8 Energy. For 10 seconds afterward, this enchantment does nothing. When this enchantment ends, you gain 1...3...3 Energy for each foe within earshot, maximum 8 Energy.
Leader's Zeal; 5e 12r
Skill. For each nearby ally, you gain 2 Energy (maximum 8...11...12 Energy).

At 12 mysticism Eremite's Zeal gives 8 energy on casting and another 8 energy when it ends. It costs 3 energy to cast (5 energy minus 2 from mysticism) and gives maximum benefit with only 3 foes in earshot. Net energy gain is 13 every 15seconds.
At 12 motivation Leader's Zeal gives 12 energy with 6 nearby allies, which may be difficult to achieve in PvE and will definitely be difficult in PvP. (earshot range >> nearby) It costs 5 to activate the skill, so this is a net energy gain of 7 in 12s if conditions are perfect.
As shown by the numbers, Eremite's Zeal is almost twice as strong as Leader's Zeal and its conditions are much easier to meet as well. Aside from that, EZ is in the dervish's primary attribute while LZ is in a secondary attribute. I would suggest moving it to Leadership and boosting its strength to make it worthwhile.

Natural Healing vs. Leader's Comfort
Natural Healing; 5e 2s 6r
Spell. You are healed for 50...146...170 Health. If you are not enchanted, this spell activates 50% faster.
Leader's Comfort; 5e 2s 8r
Skill. You gain 30...66...75 Health. For each ally within earshot, you also gain +10...18...20 Health (maximum 140 Health).

Natural Healing heals for more, recharges faster, and does not depend on anything to achieve maximum effectiveness. As a bonus NH activates twice as fast if you are not enchanted. NH >> LC.

I could go on and on but I think the trend is clear... paragon skills need an overhaul to be competitive with the other professions. I'm hoping that this will happen soon, it doesn't cost Anet anything to change skills around. I realize that this is probably futile but I felt that something needed to be said.

Rites · Feb 28, 2011, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

first the positive... I love the dervish update. Instead of just making the dervish skills more powerful they have become... different. What I mean to say is that dervishes play differently than warriors or assassins and that is a good thing. However, the dervish update also points out some glaring inequalities in skill balance especially when compared with that other Nightfall profession, paragons. Some of the paragon skills are embarrassingly bad when compared with the dervish equivalent. Here are a few examples...

Heart of Fury vs. Aggressive Refrain
Heart of Fury; 4a
Stance. For 2...10...12 seconds, you attack 25% faster.
Aggressive Refrain; 25e, 2s activation
Echo. For 5...21...25 seconds, you attack 25% faster but have -20 armor. This echo is reapplied every time a chant or shout ends on you.

My theory on this..... the fact that it reapplies after a shout/chant is the reason for cost and armor loss

BUT on the bright side Aggressive refrain is maintainable throughout the whole mission/quest/area whereas heart of fury needs adrenaline gain and recast

AND stances can be removed... shouts/echos cannot. TBH there really isnt too many spells that counter shouts/echos, which actually give paragons a huge advantage if you look at that aspect

so +1 for paragon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Onslaught vs. Avatar of Balthazar vs. Soldier's Fury
Onslaught; 10e 10r
Elite Flash Enchantment Spell. For 3...13...15 seconds, you attack, move and gain adrenaline 25% faster.
Avatar of Balthazar; 5e 2s 10r
Elite Form. For 10...74...90 seconds, you gain +20 armor against physical damage, you gain adrenaline 33% faster, your attacks deal holy damage, and whenever you lose a Dervish enchantment, nearby foes are set on fire for 5 seconds. This skill is disabled for 45 seconds.
Soldier's Fury; 5e 1s 5r
Elite Echo. For 10...30...35 seconds, if you are under the effects of a chant or a shout, you attack 33% faster and gain 33% more adrenaline, but you have -20 armor.

Unlike the dervish elites, Soldier's Fury is conditional and you get -20 armor on top of it. It's also worth noting that a dervish with 10+ Mysticism now has higher base armor than the paragon.

Considering the dervish technically is a warrior, a high AR is actually understandable. as paragons are midliners, the high AR really isn't needed as much as a frontliner.

and again you are forgetting a paragon basic:
Echo:Skill type. An echo is a skill, unique to paragons, that provides a duration-limited benefit to a single non-spirit ally. Most echoes are renewed when any chant or shout ends on the target; the remainder have some other connection to those skill types. Every echo has an energy cost, an activation time, and a recharge time, and an aftercast delay.

soo on that note: -20 AR BUT +16 shield AR = -4 AR for a ranged character

another +1 to paragons

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Balthazar's Rage vs. Burning Refrain
Balthazar's Rage; 10e 10r
Flash Enchantment Spell. All nearby foes are set on fire for 1...3...3 second[s]. For 20 seconds afterward, this enchantment does nothing. When this enchantment ends, you gain 1...2...2 strike[s] of adrenaline if any foes are within earshot.
Burning Refrain; 10e 1s 10r
Echo. For 20 seconds, if target non-Spirit ally hits a foe with more Health than that ally, that foe is set on Fire for 1...3...3 seconds. This Echo is reapplied every time a Chant or Shout ends on that ally.

Balth's Rage inflicts burning on all nearby foes and gives you adrenaline as a bonus.
Burning Refrain might inflict burning on one foe, and if you damage it below your own health you no longer cause burning. And no adrenaline bonus either... /sigh

actually on testing your own volley paragon, the burning effect is applied to all foes hit, though i agree that the conditional in this case is upsetting

again, it is an echo.....

sooo... a maintainable burning for all party members

thats +1 for paragon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Eremite's Zeal vs. Leader's Zeal
Eremite's Zeal; 5e 1/4s 15r
Enchantment Spell. You gain 1...3...3 Energy for each foe within earshot, maximum 8 Energy. For 10 seconds afterward, this enchantment does nothing. When this enchantment ends, you gain 1...3...3 Energy for each foe within earshot, maximum 8 Energy.
Leader's Zeal; 5e 12r
Skill. For each nearby ally, you gain 2 Energy (maximum 8...11...12 Energy).

At 12 mysticism Eremite's Zeal gives 8 energy on casting and another 8 energy when it ends. It costs 3 energy to cast (5 energy minus 2 from mysticism) and gives maximum benefit with only 3 foes in earshot. Net energy gain is 13 every 15seconds.
At 12 motivation Leader's Zeal gives 12 energy with 6 nearby allies, which may be difficult to achieve in PvE and will definitely be difficult in PvP. (earshot range >> nearby) It costs 5 to activate the skill, so this is a net energy gain of 7 in 12s if conditions are perfect.
As shown by the numbers, Eremite's Zeal is almost twice as strong as Leader's Zeal and its conditions are much easier to meet as well. Aside from that, EZ is in the dervish's primary attribute while LZ is in a secondary attribute. I would suggest moving it to Leadership and boosting its strength to make it worthwhile.

no arguement on this skill

BUT you seem to forget that paragons already have a pretty good e-management source
Leadership is the primary attribute of Paragons.
You gain 1 Energy for each ally affected by one of your Shouts or Chants (maximum 1 Energy for every 2 ranks).
so at 12 leadership and full party within shout range nets 6 energy every shout/chant

+6 energy per shout/chant and another 7 energy gain for this specific skill

+1 more for paragons

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Natural Healing vs. Leader's Comfort
Natural Healing; 5e 2s 6r
Spell. You are healed for 50...146...170 Health. If you are not enchanted, this spell activates 50% faster.
Leader's Comfort; 5e 2s 8r
Skill. You gain 30...66...75 Health. For each ally within earshot, you also gain +10...18...20 Health (maximum 140 Health).

Natural Healing heals for more, recharges faster, and does not depend on anything to achieve maximum effectiveness. As a bonus NH activates twice as fast if you are not enchanted. NH >> LC.

again you forget the difference between a frontliner and a midliner.

not saying that paras couldnt use a lil tweaking (and more/better skills)

Midliner = less attacks from mobs = less damage to worry about

midliner with 80 + 16 (shield) AR = 96, more than enough for a ranged toon

yet another +1 for paragons

no offense, but as stated by someone else, paragons are still at an advantage.
the biggest disadvantage to a paragon is that they are practically worthless solo

also another note:
enchantments (flash or regular) are strippable meanwhile shouts/echos are not thus giving the para a lil advantage on that department

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

this mindset is why paragons and rangers are hopelessly messed up... the idea that melee = god and all other professions exist to support them. thankfully guildwars2 is doing away with this idea, and all characters will be (theoretically) viable on their own.

no, i never said melee = god
BUT the role of a melee character IS to do the most damage and hold the aggro. it doesn't matter what game you play, the roles of these character types never change

there are always 3 roles in every fantasy game genre: spellcaster, rogue, and melee

melee always = frontline damage dealer
rogue always = support and mediocre damage
spellcaster always = healers and elements (elements = AoE spikes usually)

if you do not have a combination of these in a party, then your party has a higher chance of failing

BUT because GW doesn't force you to stick with your primary class weapons like most other games do, the flexibility in builds allows for adjustments to this formula, but it will never fully replace it

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

I would really like to see Strength of Honor trashed/redone much like Asuran Scan was. So much melee damage comes from that skill at such low cost, it's absurd. Turn it into a spirit's strength type skill so monks can have some fun when bored of healing their henchmen.

additional damage buff..... quite similar to rit weapon spells actually with the effect of -1 energy degen..... and the damage done is also roughly equivalent to many rit weapon spells..... how is this anything like AScan was? and i wouldn't say -1 energy degen is a low cost (not including possible consumables of course)

FoxBat · Feb 28, 2011, 09:38 PM // 21:38

I think there's a valid grounds for complaint about paragons, but comparing on an individual skill by skill basis is ridiculous, these are different classes and they are *supposed* to be better and worse at different things, so you can only compare them holistically within the context of what they do.

That said the post is doubly stupid because these specific comparisons often work in paragon's favor!

-20 Armor penalty is on a class with 16 AL shields and more importantly, attacking at range. Paras still have far higher survivability vs. dervs for that reason alone. Heart of Fury needs to be restarted every fight, meaning your first few hits to build adren are without the speed buff, while aggressive is always ready to go assuming you have a shout to trigger between combat, including ones you want to use anyway like TNTF or Fall Back.

Soldier's fury beats both your listed elites because it attacks at 33% speed reduction, which is about 17% increase up from 25% reduction. And again, shields vs armor penalty.

Burning refrain is outclassed badly by blazing finale, which you can put on your entire party and trigger effortlessly with GftE. You'll have 100% burning on 3 or 4 frontliners, that's far more burning than balth's rage.

Natural healing requires high wind prayers spec. Builds that push over 9 wind are pretty rare, builds pushing over 12 leadership are common. Both skills are garbage regardless so I don't know why we are looking at them.

Mednes · Feb 28, 2011, 09:56 PM // 21:56

First of all, I fully agree with you that Paragons really need a skill balance as many skills are too conditional/unworthy to bring.

But a main problem with a Paragon skill 'buff' is that when multiple Paragons are in a team they're almost unbeatable. Mind that GvG and HA will be full of Paragons that can't be beaten. However in PvP multiple Paragons are less effective than in PvE since they can't use TNTF and SY in PvP

So they actually have to make the Paragons better and worse at the same time if you know what I mean...:S

I Am The Fear · Feb 28, 2011, 10:00 PM // 22:00

There are for sure skills that should be tweaked (the ones you mentioned included) - but there are ways to get Paragons to synergize very well.
But I do agree with you for the most part, they are underpowered. Having 1 golden build (Imbagon) and many others that are mediocre isn't very balanced.

MisterB · Feb 28, 2011, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Directly comparing different classes and these skills is absurd. Next, let's discuss apples and potatoes.

Rites · Feb 28, 2011, 10:35 PM // 22:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

Directly comparing different classes and these skills is absurd. Next, let's discuss apples and potatoes.

your apples are tastier than my potatoes

instead of comparing specific skills, there should be more of understanding the roles each class plays which determines how the skill setups are

Frontliner - damage dealer/aggro holder - warriors/dervish (and minions if theres a MM, pets if there is a beastmaster)
Midliner - party support - paragons, rangers
Backline - party support/heals/AoE slingers (mostly) - spellcaster classes

Now these are the typical ideals, but players have a tendency to change that depending on the builds/teams they create

Luminarus · Feb 28, 2011, 10:44 PM // 22:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

\Next, let's discuss apples and potatoes.

I read in a trivia book that apparently apples and potatoes taste the same its just the smell and texture that makes people taste them differently or something like that.

Anywho, back on topic. I agree that paras need a bit of a rework, and if the derv update is any indication the team can rework them so that they are good, fun AND still fulfill the paras role. However, it would be nice to get that update in less than 12 months...

However, ur comparisons between the classes are flawed as their jobs are entirely different. I would be more likely to compare the difference in terms of heal support that both classes can provide, especially with something like Avatar of Dwayna compared with a series of the motivation line. Havent tested or seen it, but AoD with a series of flash tear downs could put out decent party heals and decent damage at the same time.

Khomet Si Netjer · Feb 28, 2011, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

your apples are tastier than my potatoes

instead of comparing specific skills, there should be more of understanding the roles each class plays which determines how the skill setups are

Frontliner - damage dealer/aggro holder - warriors/dervish (and minions if theres a MM, pets if there is a beastmaster)
Midliner - party support - paragons, rangers
Backline - party support/heals/AoE slingers (mostly) - spellcaster classes

Now these are the typical ideals, but players have a tendency to change that depending on the builds/teams they create

this mindset is why paragons and rangers are hopelessly messed up... the idea that melee = god and all other professions exist to support them. thankfully guildwars2 is doing away with this idea, and all characters will be (theoretically) viable on their own.

Rites · Feb 28, 2011, 11:00 PM // 23:00

funny how this is only part of this post you decided to comment on. no offense intended, but i kinda thought you would argue your points more

FoxBat · Feb 28, 2011, 11:04 PM // 23:04

I would really like to see Strength of Honor trashed/redone much like Asuran Scan was. So much melee damage comes from that skill at such low cost, it's absurd. Turn it into a spirit's strength type skill so monks can have some fun when bored of healing their henchmen.

Khomet Si Netjer · Feb 28, 2011, 11:33 PM // 23:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

My theory on this..... the fact that it reapplies after a shout/chant is the reason for cost and armor loss

This was nerfed because of PvP concerns before there was a PvE/PvP split, and because people back then were apparently too dense to apply hex shutdown to paragon teams.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

BUT on the bright side Aggressive refrain is maintainable throughout the whole mission/quest/area whereas heart of fury needs adrenaline gain and recast

AND stances can be removed... shouts/echos cannot. TBH there really isnt too many spells that counter shouts/echos, which actually give paragons a huge advantage if you look at that aspect

so +1 for paragon

It is very very easy to generate 4 adrenaline so startup cost is not an issue.
Permanent -20 armor *is* an issue. Stance removal is irrelevant, the dervish will just reapply Heart of Fury almost instantly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

Considering the dervish technically is a warrior, a high AR is actually understandable. as paragons are midliners, the high AR really isn't needed as much as a frontliner.

and again you are forgetting a paragon basic:
Echo:Skill type. An echo is a skill, unique to paragons, that provides a duration-limited benefit to a single non-spirit ally. Most echoes are renewed when any chant or shout ends on the target; the remainder have some other connection to those skill types. Every echo has an energy cost, an activation time, and a recharge time, and an aftercast delay.

soo on that note: -20 AR BUT +16 shield AR = -4 AR for a ranged character

another +1 to paragons

Soldier's Fury is not a refrain and it does not get refreshed.

re: ranged character vs. melee, the other ranged profession has several forms of permanent IAS with no armor penalty, and in fact no drawback at all. In other words the "ranged vs. melee" argument is without meaning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

actually on testing your own volley paragon, the burning effect is applied to all foes hit, though i agree that the conditional in this case is upsetting
again, it is an echo.....
sooo... a maintainable burning for all party members
thats +1 for paragon

If it worked all the time, it would be useful, though no more useful than Blazing Finale or Mark of Rodgort. However it doesn't work often in PvE and almost never in PvP. Paragons and Warriors have 630 health with fortitude mods on armor and shield, explain to me who is going to have more health than that? In PvP, no one except perhaps the new dervishes. In PvE you'll only apply burning the first time you hit a foe and that's only in hardmode against bosses or level 30+.

In any case unconditional AoE burning from balthazar's rage beats burning refrain hands down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

re: eremite's zeal vs. leader's zeal

no arguement on this skill

BUT you seem to forget that paragons already have a pretty good e-management source
Leadership is the primary attribute of Paragons.
You gain 1 Energy for each ally affected by one of your Shouts or Chants (maximum 1 Energy for every 2 ranks).
so at 12 leadership and full party within shout range nets 6 energy every shout/chant

+6 energy per shout/chant and another 7 energy gain for this specific skill

+1 more for paragons

Leadership is not relevant here, I'm talking about the strength of these skills relative to one another. Neither one is a leadership skill. You already said "no argument here" but then you contradict yourself saying that paragon is better. (???)

here's the facts: dervs have 4 energy regen vs. the paragon's 2
dervs now have expertise-like cost reduction for enchantments
dervs now have adrenaline based attack skills, reducing the cost of their attack skills to almost nothing
dervs have excellent energy management skills such as Eremite's Zeal and Zealous Vow

the paragon's leadership can provide a lot of adrenaline but it requires hitting foes and using shouts and having allies within range. in contrast, the dervish energy management has no condition at all and thus no way to shut it down.
in other words, the dervishes have at least four advantages over paragons.

In any case this discussion is not about Leadership vs. Mysticism, it is about skill balance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

no offense, but as stated by someone else, paragons are still at an advantage.

so 2+2=5 in your world? dervs are better than paragons in every way i can name.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

the biggest disadvantage to a paragon is that they are practically worthless solo

This is true, and a major design flaw imo. Looks like the design of the Guardian fixes this issue, I just hope that they don't jack things up the way they have treated paragons.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

also another note:
enchantments (flash or regular) are strippable meanwhile shouts/echos are not thus giving the para a lil advantage on that department

lol!
dervishes damage you or gain energy or inflict conditions when you strip their enchantments, and most recharge very quickly and cost next to nothing to recast. Many don't even require time to recast. If you think enchantment removal is effective against dervishes in any way you should check out the complaints in the pvp forums.

wilebill · Feb 28, 2011, 11:34 PM // 23:34

Got both Dervish and Paragon and have played both heavily since the patch. For PvE only, the Paragon does need a character rebuild; has for a very long time. The rebuild of the Dervish only underscores this. While they are at it, might as well have a look at the Ranger also!

Way I look at it, the Dervish now reflects what ANet has learned in the last couple of years working on GW 2. Paragon and Ranger are still living back in the Dark Ages. It is time for The Renaissance to come to them as well.

Khomet Si Netjer · Feb 28, 2011, 11:41 PM // 23:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

I would really like to see Strength of Honor trashed/redone much like Asuran Scan was. So much melee damage comes from that skill at such low cost, it's absurd. Turn it into a spirit's strength type skill so monks can have some fun when bored of healing their henchmen.

It can be stripped so technically it is "balanced" (lol). Smite monks need a great deal of work but that is probably not going to happen within our lifetimes.

A more serious balance issue (for those who actually understand the meaning of the word) is why Strength of Honor only applies to melee damage, whereas other buffs like Orders and hexes like Barbs and Mark of Pain trigger on any physical damage. Other buffs like GFTE and Splinter Weapon apply to any kind of attack at all. When you make one of the strongest damage buffs in the game only apply to melee damage you are shifting the balance in favor of melee. Since there are 10 professions (and only 3 melee) I contend that this kind of imbalance is not good for the game. Similar buffs that only applied to Scythes, Daggers, Swords, or even Spears are likewise imbalanced because they encourage play of one profession in preference to all others.

Rites · Feb 28, 2011, 11:46 PM // 23:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

re: ranged character vs. melee, the other ranged profession has several forms of permanent IAS with no armor penalty, and in fact no drawback at all. In other words the "ranged vs. melee" argument is without meaning.

other ranged class..... you mean rangers? most ranger IAS is conditional to having a pet OR long recharge times

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Leadership is not relevant here, I'm talking about the strength of these skills relative to one another. Neither one is a leadership skill. You already said "no argument here" but then you contradict yourself saying that paragon is better. (???)

i said no arguement on the skills, but energy regen has never been an issue with paras because of leadership, the skill was meant to be for emergency use only IF for some reason your energy happens to run low

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

here's the facts: dervs have 4 energy regen vs. the paragon's 2
dervs now have expertise-like cost reduction for enchantments
dervs now have adrenaline based attack skills, reducing the cost of their attack skills to almost nothing
dervs have excellent energy management skills such as Eremite's Zeal and Zealous Vow

again, leadership attribute evens this out

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

In any case this discussion is not about Leadership vs. Mysticism, it is about skill balance.

again you are forgetting that the role of the paragon is NOT as a frontliner

if you are going to continue argueing out these points, you really must go back to understanding what a support character is supposed to do. like i said, i agree paragons need some tweaking, but you want them to be on par with a derv/war and thats NOT the role they are supposed to fulfill

as far as the complaints about derv's... i actually have to agree. but then again ANet has always had a tendency to OVER buff when they decide to touch up classes (case and point, the mes update, and now the derv)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

A more serious balance issue (for those who actually understand the meaning of the word) is why Strength of Honor only applies to melee damage, whereas other buffs like Orders and hexes like Barbs and Mark of Pain trigger on any physical damage.

on this i actually agree on. it should be any physical damage
.... just a thought..... splinter works on staff/rod attacks? i honestly have no clue, i always assumed it didn't

chuckles79 · Mar 01, 2011, 12:37 AM // 00:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites

Frontliner - damage dealer/aggro holder - warriors/dervish (and minions if theres a MM, pets if there is a beastmaster)
Midliner - party support - paragons, rangers
Backline - party support/heals/AoE slingers (mostly) - spellcaster classes

Now these are the typical ideals, but players have a tendency to change that depending on the builds/teams they create

One of the nice points in having an MMORPG with almost 200 skills is that it allows you to get away from this hard mindset.

First off, no one is talking about PvP paras. They can do too many oddball things that will skew the metagame and raise holy hel.

Next, PvE. There's only one viable build, that's it. Everything else is gimmicky and less effective.

Paras are on the surface; a heavily armored, but ranged attacker.

They have a natural attack rate that borders on the "OMFG I can make a sandwich between throws" that requires IAS, but the IAS skills available have harmful conditions.
I suggest keep insanely high E-cost but remove armor penalty, or make it an "if enchanted" condition.

Outside of Spear Mastery there is no coherent theme for paragons. All three attributes increase dmg, prevent dmg, heal, restore energy...etc.

Honestly it could use a dervish style reboot, but the Live Team drew a line in the sand and that's just not going to happen now.

However tweaking skills slightly would help.
There are a thousand suggestions but perhaps making skill functionality match attributes.

Captain Bulldozer · Mar 01, 2011, 01:36 AM // 01:36

While I'll agree that direct comparison of skills from one class to another can be a bit tricky, there's certainly a lot of truth to the fact that ranged attackers (Paragons and Rangers) have some pretty serious problems at the moment. In fairness, this update to dervs changes the game in a pretty big way. The role of warriors has been significantly lessened by dervs, since dervs are less vulnerable to melee shutdown than warriors now, plus dervs can easily have the same armor (or more) as a warrior.

As I recall, Aggressive refrain was nerfed to its current state because a lot of people complained about it applying cracked armor and their heroes spending energy to remove it. I do think that 25e for a 25% IAS skill is way too much, even considering how easy it is to keep up in battle. 15e seems more appropriate to me. The -20 armor is annoying, but I personally have never really found it to be an issue.

As for the comparison to Onslaught of Soldier's Fury... well clearly Onslaught is massively OP. I mean, it has NO downside for all that it does. I expect a nerf is coming soon.

As for AoB... I think the burning is a bit much myself. I mean, why should a warrior avatar cause burning? My guess is that they wanted to bump up the avatars and simply went too far. Not sure if a nerf is coming on this one though.

I'm actually ok with Leader's zeal the way it is, only because I find I never have energy problems on my paragon. Still, derv skills that give energy gain went way overboard with the update. Its like they forgot that mysticism also decreases energy cost of derv enchants or something.

At high enough Leadership, Leader's comfort heals for more. But for either of these skills, they're not really worth taking anyway. Let the healers do the healing I say. A 2 sec personal heal is kinda stupid in most cases.

Again, no question that paragons are like the red headed step child of GW. The profession has many useless (or near useless) skills. I could be wrong, but as I recall paragons were super good for a while, then god hit hard with nerfs to their skills and also to armor stacking, largely because of PvP. When the skill split came along, paragons stayed where they were when profs that had been similarly effected (rits, sins, dervs) have now been buffed in many ways. It's about time paragons got some love, but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. Good hunting Khomz... try playing another prof for a while. We all know your paragon got his GWAMM a while ago anyway

Kunder · Mar 01, 2011, 02:12 AM // 02:12

lol, why did you ever bother typing all that to try and compare the two? I'm pretty sure that every sane person agrees paragons are underpowered and that dervs are overpowered.

byteme! · Mar 01, 2011, 02:25 AM // 02:25

Stop comparing classes. There's always going to be an imbalance some where.

FoxBat · Mar 01, 2011, 03:22 AM // 03:22

It's hard to take you seriously when -20 AL is such a sticking point. It's so completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of PvE to a midliner with 106 armor, especially when your class is usually boosting the entire party's armor in some way or another. It's a far lesser cost than not having your IAS ready to go at start of combat, or worse in the elite's case, having 25% vs 33% attack rate. Leave it for people with some understanding of the game to discuss how paragons might be usefully improved.